JANUARY 1, 2008
Great Grandad George Milton Moxley and Mary Ann Fleming Moxley, of Missouri and Indian Creek, Erath County,
named one son John BoltonMoxley, for an ancestor, I think.
Great Grandad lived until I was around
7 years old, These Moxleys and Flemings and Ogans and others came on a wagon train from Missouri to
Stephenville. Some say
they were getting away from the Contract Carpetbaggers fromKansas--or Kansas Jayhawkers, who were
hired by the Union leaders to enforce
the law and apparently punish Confederate soldiers. Great Grandad had lived in Kentucky and North
Carolina before Missouri. They dressed
and lived like early Quakers with some Mennonite ideas. Great Aunt Susie recorded Quaker sayings in her
diary when she attended then private
John Tarleton College, 1917. The home she lived in was where her dad settled and built the house and set up
a Rug Loom in one room, and they
had a spinning wheel and such to make and sell woven rag scraps--carpet, similar to some coming here from
Indonesia today. Aunt Susie taught
school in Huckaby, Lingleville, Pony Creek ( Near Box -Pony CreekCemetery), and Bloomington and A&M
Consolidated with a degree from Mary Hardin Baylor Belton College. She
came to church in a horse & buggyuntil her last horse died. She was
Grandmother Wyly's sister. One of their brothers, JOHN BOLTON MOXLEY, married Etta
Robinson or Roberson. Their records
are in History of William Roberson, Early Frontier Circuit Rider researched by Dr. D. D. Tidwell of
Iredell when he was teaching at Howard
Payne College in Brownwood, which was combined with Presbyterian Daniel Baker College there.

One of Uncle John's daughters married
the blind Marvin Shannon of Fort Worth. He had finished law school and he
and a brother ran ShannonFuneral Homes in Fort Worth, Texas.
Another of Uncle John's grandsons was Ken Garrett, retired art teacher in
Waco High and Reicher CatholicHigh School in Waco. Great Great Uncle
Ed Fleming taught at CrockettSchool,
between Pony Creek, Evergreen School, south of Hurley-Wakefield land.

Another Bolton family was our
neighbor in Brandon, Texas, over 30 years ago when I taught at Hill College
between Brandon and Hillsboro. We
bought our 2 story home from Jess Bolton of this family. It was built by a Doctor before 1900. I was also a Boy
Scout leader, and Jess came to
get me when his sister died, and his wife too, best I remember. Jess was semi-retired and a great Flea Market
and used merchandise operator.

Great Grandmother said we had
ancestors on the Mayflower, but I can make no connections to passenger lists to
Plymouth Colony.

There was an Indian scout who came with the wagon train from Missouri who lived among this group and he
would scout for possible Indian
Raiders who were raiding on the Paluxy River and Pony Creek. He is buried under a flat rock, by one gate to
Indian Creek Cemetery. Mowers can
drive over it, and it is not marked. Someone should put a Historic Marker on his grave.JANUARY 5, 2008
TP Coal and Oil recruited people to work in the Thurber mines.
Some Wylys worked there in mines or Thurber Brick, now Acme Brick near
Weatherford, Texas. This was a company
owned town, maintained by the TP Coal and Oil. In 1938, my dadand Uncle Lewis Wyly were buying the
cleaned bricks from old First Baptist
Church in Thurber for a foundation for farm buildings. They tookme out of school to go see the ghost
town and haul a few bricks back to Selden. Some mine shafts were open to
1950. One of our friends was playing on one of the slag piles which
still do not grow trees, and dropped
his SHS Class ring and watched it bounce off the pile into the open vertical shaft of one of the mines.
These shafts were large enough to
drop mules into the mine to pull coal cars back to the elevator.

The Bosque County Mingus family had
some [individuals] settled in present Mingus, Texas, across Erath County line from
Thurber. Wonder if they had any connections with the striking miners
and the directions they moved to when Desdemona Oil made coal unnecessary to
fire the steam locomotives California
bound , and John L. Lewis lost his first strike as a Union leader, demanding a dollar a day raise.

C.T. or C.E Carr ran a service station and Ace Cafe 1946-1950's.
Herbert Webb also ran the
station by City park-Hwy 67 Bridge. Carr, Carey, and others
slowly moved towards Hico and several settled in Selden Community. Hudspeth,
Latham,Carey, Kay, Hatchett, Bailey, Wood, and others are in photos mom
kept. Great Uncle George
Carey 's families and Luther Carr and Herbert Webb were closely connected. Rex Carey
might help. I have photos of Selden youth on Sunday picnics--Wyly, Carey, Carr,
Webb, & others listed above.
Mom and her Carey siblings and
cousins took the pictures.

David Carey now owns part of
Dr. W. P. Hatchett's land south of the 2 story plantation style house in Selden. First Tom
Hatchett's store was near a spring between Grandad Henry Carey's house and his
brother's house, which still
stands near David Carey's present brick home. The store wasmoved to Selden, across the road from
the Selden Cotton gin. John Kay built the new store and post office for
Selden, and John Kay hiredhis
brother in law Tom Payne to be Selden Postmaster and run the
store. John Kay also had
the first telephone party lines in Erath County. Lastswitchboard operator was a Garner. Phones
rang by long and short ring combinations
and everyone on the line could hear you, if they did notrecognize the combination of long and short
rings. Johnny Dunn's momAnnabelle
Allison also lived next to John Kay's prairie farm, towards Evergreen School and is in some of the
photos.

Tom's tall monument is in Selden or
Hatchett Cemetery near Duffau Creek, on paved county road from Hwy 67 to Duffau.
Luther Carr brought his stake body
truck for a table for holiday picnics and swimming in the cold spring channel, and rock and gravel,
swimming. We drank water from awell maintained spring below the
channel when fishing or camping or picnicking.

We used to joke about not dating
anyone near our homes or Selden or Johnsville schools because they might be
kin folk.

This [the last hanging in Erath County] is described in Historic
Calendars published by Stephenville Bank and Trust and/or historic calendars of the
Century Club. Both have detailed
references to newspapers and such for their information. Public hangings were illegal in Texas, but
the gallows was usually near the
jail. The last legal Stephenville hanging drew a crowd who saw the convicted person walk to the gallows, then
a door for a shield hid him from
public view while he was bound and hanged, and, when he was dead,the shield was removed for public
viewing of the deceased.

JANUARY 12, 2008I got my information [about the last
hanging in Erath County] from historic Calendars put out for several years by Town and Country Bank. It was
researched by Dan Young, who taught
at Hico later. He has outstanding bibliography in the back and a happening for each day, such as the
slow rumble, 1893. reported in Stephenville,
Mineral Wells and towards Austin papers of that day. Stagedrivers and passengers heard it, like
distant thunder. It took a few days by telegraph to piece it together that it
may have been Krakotoa Volcanoand
Tusamni and earthquake in Indonesia. There were also other less spectacular daily records such as when the
longest stage coach run from Fort
Worth to Yuma, Arizona, and Rocky Martin of Erath County had a run a day or so long, then took another stage
home. If my memory is right, Dan Young was once married to one of my former
students and neighbor in Walnut
Springs, Bosque County--Dr. Natrelle Hedrick Young of Tarleton, and a graduate of Walnut Springs High
School. She was a niece of Ms. Urcy
Cook, English teacher in Walnut Springs High. Also, the Century Club published a similar
historic calendar, mostlyconnected to Stephenville. These Calendars would be an excellent
reference, full of sources,bound
into a book. Each year the calender
had different events for the same date a year later. My parents had collected them for over 10
years.

Some
[calendar pictures were] of early Stephenville and Dublin and a passenger
train taking on water at Bluff Dale
Station. Also some of Thurber and Chalk Mountain main street. These photos may be posted on the Tarleton
State University site: archives of Erath and Brown Counties, online sources of
daily historic news on each date.
Tarleton has a few hundred photos, such as Great Great [Grandfather]
Robert Augustine Wyly of
Selden, his brother William Sevier Wyly of Selden and John Wylie of Northeastern Erath County, in
photos of Erath County Grandjuries.
12 or 13 Wylys, siblings, came from Georgia to Erath County, Texas. Some of their land titles are in the
archives of McLennan County in the Waco courthouse annex in the old Bell
Telephone offices. When Bosque Countywas split off, archives of the same land
were filed in Meridian, and a short
time later, Erath County was cut off Bosque County. Records there included parts of Somerville and Hood
County across the Paluxy which were removed from Erath County, so you may
find records connected to Erath County
in Cameron, in the Texas State Library in Austin, in Waco, Meridian, Stephenville, Glen Rose or Grandbury. There
were once Erath County post offices
across the river from Paluxy Town towards Comanche Peak andTolar.

Most of this land in the Republic of
Texas was in Milam County. Cameron is the county seat of what's left of Milam
County. The strip of land in Milam went from south of Waco at an angle towards
Red River east of Wichita Falls.
JANUARY 20, 2008Another group from Missouri and
Illinois came to Texas, a few years before the German migration of Prince
Solm's-Braunfels of New Braunfelsarea--they were tired from abortive
revolution in Germany--not of the earlier German Yowell and Hipps of
Pennsylvania and Dutch Fork Hipps ofNorth Carolina. Grandmother Elizabeth
(Bessie) Hipp's parents were from
Clinton, South Carolina and are buried in Hurricane Baptist Churchbetween Clinton and Duncan Creek
Presbyterian Church, where some of the Copeland ancestors were first settlers and
dressed in Deerskin or sackdresses and homemade Indian Style
shoes and coonskin caps and took a rifle to Duncan Creek Church. They had cousins
buried in Clinton HurricaneCemetery named Dillard,
Nabors/Neighbors (same family), Hipp, Copeland, Vaughn/Vaughan (same
family--apparently from names onheadstones. They also differed in spelling
when they went to school. (My first
grade teacher at Johnsville tried to make me re-spell Wyly).

Grandmother Carey grew up in Arlansas
and when she married John Henry Carey
their first daughter was Ada Carey Hatchett, and Mom had not yetarrived when Grandad Carey came on the
trail from Hope, AR to Huckaby,
TX to stay with his Stone cousins. Grandmother brought Mom as a baby and her
older sister on the railroad to
Huckaby. Now where did they get off for Huckaby? Bluff Dale or
Thurber? Or did the Jake
Hammond Railroad come near Huckaby???

When we worked a fire days and took
time off in Arkansas, we visited
Hope, Eureka Springs and Mena, and I remembered that Grandad used totell us he came on the Pig
Trail. Most thought he meant log or corduroy based roads through swamps. He had Harrison
cousins near Nashville andMena. Some in Mena would point across
the State Line to the Federal Park and the prehistoric Indian Pig Trail, with
its south end on Ouachita Mountain Ridge. No trucks allowed on this road. From
Mena the road goes 45 miles west
and south around Broken Bow--a steep and narrow road when it drops nearer to Red River. There are old roads
from Broken Bow to a Red River low water crossing near Paris, Texas, where
John Chisholm was County Clerk before
he and a Wylie of Desdemona area drove their cattle to Concho River to fatten them and let Goodnight and
Loving drive them on the trail south
to the Pecos, then north up the river to Colorado and Wyomingmarkets which supplied Indian villages and
pioneers. . .

Also, the Shawnee Trail was a "Two Way
trail" where the John Chisum of Broken
Bow drove some [cattle from] Texas and Oklahoma to the Illinois
market. Another trail
came from Eureka Springs to ancient Blackburn Mill on War Eagle. Also there was a wire Road up the White
River for telegraph-line, mostly. Grandmother and Grandad were buried in
Huckaby Cemetery, but most oftheir
family grew up in Selden, Texas.JANUARY 21, 2008Had an E mail yesterday from Cousin
Glenda Moring Niederhoffer withsome
photos of the UFO and interviews. Last night 2 TV stations in Waco had the report on TV
and earlier 2 in Fort Worth ... also
carried interviews. Also, it seems there were some military planes in the area which do not
normally fly there--Stephenville
past Selden towards Hico. The Stephenville Empire Tribune had reports on it. They are on-line. Then
I phoned a Carey cousin in Erath County, and he had met several people
who had seen it. He said he wasbusy
working with his head down.

One report was that cattle had been
nervous the last 2 days--like they
do when a storm is on the way and the barometer is changing. Cattle breeding had nothing to do with this
behavior. We used to see this on
our Johnsville farm when cattle would walk the fence, bawling and not eating much, and that night a
storm--wind and/or rain fromthe
west. One such storm blew our chicken house away, which puzzled the chickens, some with less feathers. They
tried to get back on the roost with
no house left. A window blew out of the Johnsville home, and moved the front porch. The next day the cattle were
very calm. Buck Little and wife and Herbert and Richard (who were very small)
stopped at our cellar. The car blew
into a ditch. Which would you prefer--the wind or the chicken snakes which were sometimes in log ceiling of dirt
cellars?

One
such day preceded the tornado which tore down houses in Riverside Edition before it had streets and present
houses.

I have seen FBI reports by Percy Wyly
of Tahlequah, Oklahoma birth, agent
under J. Edgar Hoover, of his findings in the Roswell incident. When thecourts ordered it released by the
regional office in Fort Worth, some words or sentences were black lined. Now, I
cannot find that report which wason the Internet. Percy retired as head
of security of Albuquerque Sandia Corp. and Albequerque City schools. His son
was an attorney there, whenDon Wyly Slaughter, of Roswell,
Levelland, and Albuquerque was also an attorney. His nephew Eddie Lee Whittenburg was raised
in a concrete dugout with
small windows turned into bedrooms after the newer house was
built. Eddie ran for
Governor of Texas once. (By
the way, the dugout with bunks was the first West Texas/New Mexico homestead home, besides tents. Most
of Uncle Oliver Wyly's girls were born in New Mexico and lived in a dugout.)

Ab McCarty, also of Pettit, married a
sister in law of Ruthie Riley Burnett.
Ab was killed when his car fell on him in the loose sand. He was from Walnut Springs area where his siblings
lived. "Mac"McCarty was one of
my students and has coached at Lubbock Monterey High inLunblock if he is still teaching.

*
* * * *

Evergreen school and church were on
the dirt road off old Dirt Highway 67--across the creek and new Highway
past Roy Garrett's service station and
Parham's wrecking yard. Old Dirt Hwy 67 followed many sharp corners
where fence lines were surveyed.

Old Hwy 67 left the Hico Highway just below the Stephenville Sewer
Plant, in the Valley Grove area. Evergreen School was still open when I
was
small. They had an outdoor stage where adults would perform plays to
raise money for improvement of the school. We attended a play there. In
other words, the Evergreen School was between Valley Grove and Crockett
School, or between Selden and Cedar Point via Hurley land. Great Aunt
Susie Moxley's Uncle Ed Fleming taught there. Aunt Susie taught at
Huckaby Academy, Lingleville, Box School a few yards from Pony Creek
Church. About 1900, Ben Franklin Wyly from Atlanta had traded sheep for
Trammel and Crow of San Angelo and Stephenville property. He was a
Methodist Elder. Methodists and Primitive Baptists and others met in
the school room. The water well was on the side of the branch by the
Pony Creek Missionary-Southern Baptist church, which is used today by
descendants of Primitive Baptist Hurleys and McCartys. Ben was also a
member of the lodge above the school room. Johnsville had a similar
building 2 or 3 miles from present Three Way School. The lodge hall was
upstairs, just like [the one at] Chalk Mountain, the oldest in the
state still active. Downstairs at Johnsville was used as a Blacksmith
shop. It was empty when I started to school, and we kids would play
washer toss games or marbles in the shade.

Aunt Susie also taught at Bloomington, Texas and Pea Ridge and A&M
Consolidated School. The Bloomington School Board offered her a
Principal's position, but she refused it. As one with some Missouri
Quaker roots, she did not believe a woman should have positions of
authority
over men. Her brother John Moxley married Etta Robinson and one
daughter married Marvin Shannon of Shannon Funeral homes and ambulances
in Fort Worth. The Pea Ridge photo I have is of Aunt Susie and
students sitting on the big woodpile used for heat. If you see a photo
of a male teacher at Crockett, with a patch over his eye, that is Uncle
Ed Fleming, who lived next to Pleasant Hill (Chigger Hill) Methodist
Church when Aunt Susie taught at Indian Creek, near the church and
cemetery. The Indian Creek School was moved to Selden with mules and
rollers, and was just behind the present Selden Church. (Wonder if they
ever saw Flying Saucers like you are seeing there now?)

She had a degree from private Tarleton College the year the State took
it into the Texas A&M system. Her dairy tells about girls
being released from classes to care for women dying during the
Flu Epidemic, before 1920. She also finished her degree at Mary Hardin
Baylor Belton. School back then was 6 or 7 months long. She also tells
about going by train with a Dove girl to Bluff Dale for some holidays
to visit the Dove family. A sudden norther changed a warm day into
freezing weather, and when the locomotive stopped at Bluff Dale, the
water had frozen and damaged the water tank, and it was snowing.
Mr. Dove got his buggy out and some blankets for the buggy and took
them back to Tarleton. To attend College, she and her family wove place
rugs or long strips for carpet, and she sold some of them in Belton.FEBRUARY 2, 2008Mr. Wight (Not Wright) led a Mormon
splinter group from Yazoo City through
Missouri to Texas, 1844 appx. They built grist mills in severallocations before Prince Solms
Braunfels led his German supporters into texas from Germany, and the road out of
Austin, Texas today is called THE
MORMON ROAD. Mr. Wight had followed teachings of the Campbell preachers, and started a Commune across the
river from Missouri. He converted to the Mormon religion. The Lampasas Mormon Colony was Communal and used to associate with
Anglos or Germans when they developed
an epidemic of a flu-like sickness and starvation. Three lived and started for Salt Lake City, and
Church leaders sent a party to
remove all buried from the Lampasas Stake. Gov. Augustus King was a judge in the Mormon polygamy trials in
Missouri, and his family came toStephenville, Texas, where some King
families still live. He, like the Wylys, were on the Gen. and Gov. John
Sevier family Tree in Knoxville, Tennessee. John Sevier (Xavier) spoke
7 languages and was a member of the first session and other terms in U.S.
Congress. Seviers today in Texas trace to Itasca, Milford, Waco and others.
Severl generations of Sevier, Wyly,
and King families spoke and read Latin Vulgate Bibles. Great Grandad and Uncle Bill (William Sevier
Wyly) would sit on the front porch
in Selden and read Latin Vulgate Bibles. Back in Tennessee, many hired Baptist, Presbyterian and other
Ministers to home school their children
during the week.

My wife's step grandad was from from
Cleburne, Texas was a member of the
Independence, Mo. nranch of the LDS Church. This branch was notpolygamous, and Stakes, or Churches,
were/are apparently not following the ideas of those who left for Utah.

Mr. Wight went back to Missouri to
rejoin a son or grandson of Joseph Smith, then to Utah. Three of his
sons refused to follow him back andstayed in Texas.

Indian Creek, between Selden and the
Bosque River was the destination of a wagon train from Missouri, with an Indian
for a scout on the trail and
after they settled south of Stephenville. This included my Great Grandparents--Murphy, Moxley, and
kin--Ogan--Fleming, and others. Their first school/church was where the dam is
across the road from the roadside
park, 6 or 8 miles out of town. A Mrs. Briley is buried next to Great Grandmother Mary Ann Fleming and her
Murphy mom. Brileys had lived in
Maratheal's Gap--Marble school or "Greasy" now part of Three Way. Joe Briley moved from Fort Worth to Hewitt, and
is a Deacon in Hewitt First Baptist.
Marble school was inactive when Johnsville, Chalk Mountain,and Pony Creek consolidated their
schools Into Three Way Schools with High School now bussed to Hico High.

When the Old Spanish Trace, or El
Camino Real was first used, Missouri or states below them to Louisiana ND Texas
were Spanish--not Mexican-- territory.

By the way, the word "Bosque" traces
back through Spain to Navarre, Aragon and Pamplona, where Xavier records are kept
today in the PamplonaLibrary. The Court Clerk of Navarre
signed his name as whatever, then underwrote Grecian Del Bosque or Bosque Del
Rondo, indicating his office
in the Basque Kingdoms. About 1/2 of Colombus's sailors and many explorers were of Basque origin.FEBRUARY 10, 2008I attended Selden school and church
with a W.A. Wood who should be age 81 or two, if still living. His
brother Garvin Wood married Dorothy
Scrimscher- -second marriage for him and third for her. They are both survivors. They live near the
Historic Scale house and Texas marker for the Selden Cotton gin location, on
Simms Creek near Baptizing hole and cable swing over the water. Garvin
ran Open Spaces Dairy before his first wife, Olive Wyly Wood, passed
away. He is past 90 now. His twin sons took over the Open Spaces Dairy--Kevin
and Sherwin, and their sister
Nova Schouten works in the Purchasing Office of Tarleton State Univerty and lives on a Schouten Dairy
Farm. They are related to the Bailey who married a Gristy from Aransas Pass or
Rockport, who had triplet girls in
Stephenville Hospital. Her grandparents were Ned and Ida Head
Gristy of Selden-Johnsville
area on Hwy 67. Dad used to lease their farm land. One of the triplets, now married and
living in Brownwood, did her student teaching in Lake Air School in
Waco, where I was a regular Substitute. She was ready to go back to
Brownwood the day school was out.
One of the twins has lived in a home built before 1900 inSelden--it has had the old covered cistern
and walk and Carbon filter for fainwater.
Its roof was all removed and has been modernized. Great Grandad Robert Augustine Wyly's brothers- William Sevier
Wyly, or Uncle Bill to most who
knew him (Great Grandad and Uncle Bill married Hatchett sisters. Grandad's farm joined Uncle Bill's ) and
Rev. Hurley would sit and rock and
discuss the Bible when Mr. Hurley went to Selden Gin. Uncle Bill studied the Latin Vulgate Bible. He and
Great Grandad Robert used to sit on the front porch, and rock and amuse kids
with jokes and tall tales, also
meant as jokes. The kids would laugh while the elder storytellers rocked with a straight face.
There was also a connection of Baileys and Carey families.

I copied a Graves family history from
the Computer a few years ago and Garvin was listed as a Graves family
descendant. Older members of this Bailey family were in the photo of
old Oak Dale School with mom's Carey siblings and cousins from the Huckaby-Oak
Dale area. This Graves family is now doing DNA tests on all Male
Graves descendants. They have aregular family newsletter by a
Graves descendant, and had a reunion last year in Waco, then the next month one in New
Mexico. A Graves family trip to England
to research Graves- Graves family history and locations, is being
organized by the leader
of these Reunions. I am also a Graves family descendant from Col. Ben Cleveland
of Rev. War of U.S. Now, if Igot the wrong spelling of Wood or
Woods, please let me know. I don't think the Woods Family Furniture Store in
Stephenville was connected to the
other Wood families, according to what I was told.

Mom said there was a well near the
Bosque, hand dug, between them andStephenville not far from Oak Dale School
and Church where some used to draw
water, until someone found dead dogs thrown into it. Last time I was that way, I think the rock
around the well is still visible.FEBRUARY 14, 2008Some Stricklands lived in Selden
Community and school District. Mom used to talk about them, and I think one or more
are in the Selden Churchrecords,
possibly the Centenial list of former members. Seems like she was Mary Jane Strickland. I have a photo
somewhere which includes a Strickland
or two, and my parents and Robert Latham. Mom had also livedin Valley Grove and Huckaby.
Grandmother Carey brought Mom (Emma Irene Carey) and older sister Ada Carey Hatchett
by train from Arkansas. Grandad
had preceded them by covered wagon from Hope, Arkansas to his James Stone kin in Huckaby. He said he came
by the Pig Trail. I found out
a few years ago while mixing a short work trip with vacation that thecommon wagon route was from Hope to
Harrison to Mena, where Grandad hadkin. At Mena the Pig Trail is marked with
Arkansas and Oklahoma park road
signs--no heavy trucks or large mobile homes allowed. The
trail,now a park road, is on
the southern ridge of the Ouachita Mountains, and after leaving Mena city limits one is
in Oklahoma for 45 miles ofthe
Ridge Road which curves to west of Broken Bow, and highways follow the trail in Oklahoma to a low water Red
River crossing above Paris,Texas,
then to Huckaby, Texas. Question is: when Grandma came by train,did they come by railroad through
Stephenville, the California bound RRthrough Thurber, or did the Jake Hammond RR
run near Huckaby?? The Pig Trail
was used by a prehistoric band of Indians who drove hogs towardsGreat Lakes tribes to swap for
fish or whatever. It dodged the swamps south of Red River.

When we lived in Walnut Springs
retired Col. Honzie Rodgers had
a ranch on the Iredell road. He married an Anita or Nita Fair, sister to the Walnut Springs Postmaster, who had a
ranch adjoining the Rodgers Ranch. He was an officer on the School
Board there. He had a bayonet scar
on one jaw. Anita or Nita had attended Tarleton Nurse training when my Aunt, Capt. Mary E. Wyly of Selden
and in South Pacific combat zones,
was beginning her nurse training. When Ira Hurley, Erath County born and Walnut barber, drowned from a
large tree falling on him while he was fishing in the Bosque, the next day at
sunup, Col. Rodgers was in theHurley
home cooking breakfast, washing dishes, cleaning house and meeting friends who were bringing in
food for the family. Sam Rose
was the other barber and was Ira's brother in law. Ira's wife was Lela Hurley, born in the Three Way
School area. Dad's Aunt Etta Robinson
Moxley was Lela's cousin and visited them and us in Walnut Springs ( Peaceful Valley). One Sunday we
took Lela and Aunt Etta for a ride
to see the homes of their pioneer connections. I think Tom Fair Jr. finished Texas A&M and was either
an Ag Teacher or a County Agent, last I heard. I was in the Volunter Fire
Dept there with Tom and others when
we were in Flat Top Ranch in both counties fighting a Cedar Fire around
Flat Top Mountain.
Stephenville, Glen Rose, Meridian, Iredell, and another or two were also there. We surrounded the fire
and it went up the mountain. Stephenville
truck radio could not call Stephenville, but had a skip to Comanche who could keep Stephenville
Fire Dept in touch. We had one Walnut
truck run mostly by Senior Boys and one or two trained volunteers.FEBRUARY 22, 2008Rabbit Center was once called Welcome
Valley. Evergreen School and Church
[were in] the next community past Rabbit Center on old dirt Hwy
67,which ran in front of our
house in Johnsville, then on sharp corners past Johnsville Post Office to Skipper's
Gap. The convenience store there is on a hill between the creeks.
There is a cowboy church on the westside of the village, and a creek on the
other side. I think it was between one branch of Indian Creek.
Dad called the other creek "PoleHoller" or Pole Hollow. This is a
patch of sandy land surrounded by black land. Water there is very shallow,
and there used to be lots of fruit
and berry patches where you could pick your own for a small price,or pick it on the halves. Lots of
houses were scattered on small acreage with orchards and vineyards and gardens,
and it was close to Stephenville if one worked there.

In the 1940's several of us youngsters
had motorcycles and we all agreed that we found out something about Rabbit
Center that one would not learn in
cars. In the summer nights, the air was cool on our faces, and past the
Roy Garrett Service Station
(Now a Parham's Wrecking yard) the air wouldbe hot. In the winter, reverse it. The
shallow water and sand seemed toradiate heat on our faces at night,
but once past the community in the black and limestone land, the air would be
chilling cold. That is onereason
bikers wore leather zipper coats, to turn off cold air or unzip and be comfortable as the temperature
changed.

I remember McCoys, Greens and knew
several others in the area. [Miles Glen Thornton's] son Glen
Thornton was in a Senior Class which we took to Bar K DudeRanch near San Antonio, and one day in
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I would notadvise that trip today, especiallyalone or
in a school bus. Some borderbandits,
once part of the Mexican Army, now rule much of the area at
night. If you went
there, you are under Napoleonic Code- where if you are stopped for a ticket or other charges, and
you may be jailed as guilty until
you can prove yourself innocent. Some Texas School buses were confiscated. One was returned several
years later.

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* *
* *
[There was an] incident where a black man was working for a Comanche County farmer. He had
a room, like some farms and ranches of that day had, like the bunkhouse of
Anderson 640 Ranch, in the corner of their barn. Photographs and comments of the
Anderson Bunkhouse and of the wild
times after the wife of the farmer was found dead in her kitchen,their black man was plowing and the
husband was gone. These calendars with photos and bibliography were published
by Stephenville Town and Country
Bank in the 1990's or earlier.

It seems there were several Mexican
drifters and a few Indians drifting through Erath and Comanche Counties. Some
were Indians returning to Oklahoma
after Civil War. When the woman's body was found, a Lynch crew on horseback rode into Comanche and ran all
Mexicans and Negroes out of town
and burned some of their homes. Then the mob grew and startedtowards Dublin to run all blacks and
Hispanics out of Dublin. Dublin blacks and whites barricaded the Dublin to
Comanche road at the Dublin City Limits. They piled outhouses and anything
loose around the overturned wagons and loaded rifles and shotguns and sent a
message that no one was going to lynch anyone or burn minority houses; and
anyone trying would be sent home dead. The lynch crew vanished
somewhere towards Comamche.

Rather strange: the first house in
present Stephenville was built by a free black man a year or two before Mr.
Stephen returned to the land and built a home nearby the first one. The top
floor of the Majestic Movie theatre in Stephenville was mostly blacks in
1930-40's, but sometimes Stephenville
area white boys would sit upstairs for a better view .

One Dublin area settler came from
Alabama, but before leaving the family went to visit a black lady and her son , Lee
Rice. She was dying. and the man and his wife had two sons his age, and he
adopted Lee and brought him to a
Dublin farm. The three boys grew up together. Any old timer in Three Way School District knew Lee Rice, of Chalk
Mountain, who ran the Dr.Cragwall or Malloy's Ranch in Chalk
Mountain. Lee would gin his cotton at Johnsville Gin, and when a housewife
brought cotton to be ginned, Lee,
out of respect for his Dublin foster mother, would pull his wagon to the back of the line and insist the woman
gin ahead of him. Lee alsofilled
the silo on his place, which could be seen for miles down Hwy 67.
He came to all activities
held at Johnsville School, such as Thanksgiving and End of School. One of the
Meadors--Grady I think--was on the school board when I was in school there, and he
and Lee would kill a calf and start
to bar-b-Q it the night before; then, after the meal and program, all went to the basketball court,
or to play baseball. Lee playedbaseball
with mixed teams of men and older boys.

When Lee was about 12, his
foster dad gave him some money-- $20.00 or so--and told him he could spend it as he wanted
to. His foster dad told him that
the man running one store would sell to him , but if he did, there were some from Comanche County watching him
from across the street and they
would cease trading with the merchant. He stood and cried, and would not go in the store. This
was the time that the sign on the Comanche County line bluntly
expressed which ethnic groups were notwelcome after sundown. That was in my
lifetime.

Lee would stop at Johnsville store,
and if some of us came by from school, he would give us candy. He also was a
fair veterinarian, and if he heard someone like the Hales had a sick horse or
cow, he would be there helping.

When he came to Stephenville for
church or shopping, he wore a hat, tie, vest, dress coat, and sometimes spats.

Today, I will give you odds that there
are Mexicans and mixed breeds working
on Comanche County dairies and in dairy feed industries. Black men from Stephenville slaughterred
our calves and packaged them for the Stephenville locker plant, before we had
electricity.

As Jimmy Rogers used to sing, 'Time
Changes Everything"

* *
* *
* *Also, some action blamed on lynch mobs was
done by the Central Texas Rangers under John R. Baylor, and others by George
Baylor of West Texas. Dr. McNeil
of Stephenville rode with George chasing Geronimo into Wacowith the help of the Mexican Army, then
back into Arizona where they lost him. My mom and Daisy McNeil Stone were cousins
through the Carey-Stone connections
and shared a rest home room in the Stephenville Nursing Home. Cloye Stone Stuart was across the hall from
them. Daisy used to run a used
book stock in front of the McNeil Barber shop, and she was the cashierfor barbers and bath house rooms
for country folk or travellers to clean up when coming from work to town
shopping.

* * * * *
* Ben Franklin Wyly and his Uncle
Augustin Clayton Wyly ran a 4 story whole Mercantile business in Atlanta, Ga. before
the Civil War. Ben is buried near Comanche, Texas, across the line from
Hamilton county, Ireland or Mitchell
Cemetery, where some Mitchell and Wyly kin are buried. Afterthe Civil War, Ben came to Stephenville,
around 1890. His Uncle Augustin was
in England during the Civil War on a business trip to Liverpool, where some Confederate ships were
built. His two little daughters diedthere of Diphtheria and are buried on a
Confederate connected Trail of over 50 graves.

One of Ben's sons came to San Angelo
with several hundred English sheep, and they were traded to Trammel and Crow
for Erath County property, incuding
a Pony Creek Ranch, and Stephenville homes and a business on the west side of Stephenville Square. Before he
was buried near Comanche with
6 of his kin, he had run a lumber yard in Stephenville and FortWorth and was a Methodist Elder and
Lodge Member in the old Box-Pony Creek Methodist church with lodge hall upstairs,
a Community Center usedfor
school and churches--Methodist and possibly primitive Baptist and others. The present Church building at
Box-Pony Creek was started by Great
Great Great Grandad Dr. William Pinckney Hatchett and Rev. BillRobinson of Dublin and Stephenville
and was in Paluxy Southern Baptist Church. Some of Ben's family were
working in Thurber Coal and Brick yards, including Moring, Tackett, and
others. He and his sons had a cotton yard in Minnieola, and Lost Spindletop Oil
Well too. Dad Joiner and some
of the family ran Galveston Cotton export press and warehouse onGalveston Island. Ben #3 was a Navy
sea diver and ran a Bacliff MarineSupply until recent years. He sold the
inactive Wyly Oil Company to Samand Charles J. Wyly of Dallas. They may
have been connected in Ireland, but
some claim they were connected in the U.S. I have not found proof
of that.

Was Trammel Crow descended from
the Stephenville Trammel and Crow lines? Ben had 12 siblings who came to Erath County
before 1870. Any
input welcome, especially where Ben and kin are buried in Comanche
county.

* *
* *
* *Some of Ben F. Wyly's family still
live in Graham. I have a hunch they may have worked in the Newcastle mine
outside Graham, run by Thurber TP Coal and Oil, or the Johnson Ranch.
My aunt Mary Ella Wyly of Selden, Erath County, attended Tarleton and St.
Joseph Nursing school in Fort Worth
with her cousin Dadidella Wyly of Graham . I drove the Kemp Bus line--Stephenville to Mineral Wells to
Graham--one summer. I always had some oil field supplies and passengers. The Senior
Mr. Kemp ran the Stephenville Bus
Station. One son ran the Mineral Wells Depot and otherbusinesses, and another ran the Graham
Station. The Fort Worth route was no longer running for Kemp by then.
Mingus founders were from BosqueCounty, but books have been
written about Mingus being wet for liquor when Erath County was dry, and miners were
welcome there in Palo Pinto County.
That is another book or two, especially for Tarleton Students who had
cars and roads to get
there. Cage and Crow
Bank in Stephenville had an Italian Opera hall upstairs on Stephenville Square. Many Thurber
workers had Italian connections, brought there by TP Coal and Oil.